Following a Junewhen total publishing sales rose 11% over the year prior, sales in July fared even better, increasing 14% at the approximately 1,416 publishers that report financial results to the AAP’s StatShot program.
Both the adult and children’s/young adult categories had strong July results led by nonfiction. The struggling adult nonfiction category had a 23% increase in the month over a year ago, led by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Regime Change,which sold over 135,000 copies in the month (Year-to-date adult nonfiction sales were still down 0.2%.) The small children’s/YA nonfiction segment also had a 29.8% sales jump
July adult fiction sales increased 16.5%, once again led by Theo of Golden, which sold more than 208,000 copies, and children’s/YA fiction sales increased 13.7%.
Adult nonfiction sales were led by the print formats with hardcover nonfiction sales up 28.6% and trade paperback up 27.4%. Digital audio sales jumped 15.6% in the month, but e-book sales were basically flat. On the fiction side, results were nearly the same—trade paperback sales rose 25.3% and hardcover sales increased 22%. Digital audio sales climbed 14.9%, but e-book sales slipped 1.8%.
As usual, print led the way in children’s/YA. In fiction, hardcover sales rose 17.4% and paperback jumped 21.5%. Digital audio sales dropped 4.9% and e-book sales plunged 16.5%. In nonfiction, hardcover and paperback sales rose 34.7% and 47.8%, respectively, while the digital formats had small declines.
The education segment had a 2.3% sales increase in July and the university presses category had a jump of 15.2%. Religious presses, which had a slow start to the year, dropped 4.3% in July and were up 0.8% year-to-date. The professional and scholarly category saw sales fall 2.9% in July.
For the first seven months of the year, sales for all reporting publishers were up 5.4% over the comparable 2025 period.
